Umar Mohammad, 58, has been living in Kolkata for several decades and lends small amounts of money at moderate interest rates. For the past two weeks, he says, he has not been able to contact his family and friends living in Kunduz, Afghanistan. “I last spoke to my younger brother and the family in July. Since May, I have been asking them to leave Afghanistan and move to India or any other country. I have no idea about their present situation,” he said.
As the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan with the capture of its capital Kabul, the ‘Kabuliwalas’ of Kolkata—immortalised by a Rabindranath Tagore short story—are deeply concerned about their family members back home. Afghans living in Kolkata are widely known as Kabuliwalas. They mainly sell dry fruits, carpets and perfumes brought from their country door to door. Along with this, they are also involved in moneylending.
A 25-year-old man from Afghanistan’s Paktika province who came to Kolkata through ancestral sources did not wish to reveal his name while narrating his woes. He has also chosen the business of moneylending and lives with a young man from his village at CIT Road in the city. He says he spoke to his parents over the phone on Monday afternoon and was stunned to learn about the situation back home. “It took the Taliban two months to capture Muthakhan, which is 80 kilometres away from Kabul. About 1,100 Talibanis were killed in that war. In Lashkargah also they fought for over a month. But I can’t even imagine how Kabul collapsed like a house of cards,” the young man said. After speaking with his family members, he said he understood that the Taliban could not have taken over the country so easily without the consent of the former government and part of the Afghan army itself.
The Kabuliwalas of Kolkata were not this upset at the time of the Indian government’s demonetisation move in 2016. But they are now worried about their future. Mohammed Nabi, a UN refugee card holder, told the tale of his escape to India in a rather cheerful mood. The Taliban shot Nabi in the leg while he was playing a game in Paktika province, south of Kabul. On the day demonetisation was announced in India, he was busy sending money to his wife and daughter in Kabul. Five years later, as the nightmares returned to Afghanistan, there was no response to Nabi’s phone calls.
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